Allowing those who don't have "skin in the game" to moderate has its own problems. We already have complaints about "Meta police"...

Tried to search the term both here on MSO and on MSE, but found only old mentions of CW police. What does this term mean? Has it something to do with users moderating the site without participating in Q&A itself?

"Has it something to do with users moderating the site without participating in Q&A itself?" <-- that. Whether or not that is an actual thing though is not all that clear. It seems to be often used (in various forms) by users who are somehow dissatisfied with actions taken on their posts or on posts they like.
– BartAug 9 '14 at 13:04

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take a look at MSE post pointing out the phenomenon: 'Another half to this problem is Lounge<C++>. Not all of them and not all the time, but do a search of their room for the term "meta police"...' There is also funny discussion in the comments to that post
– gnatAug 9 '14 at 14:40

4 Answers
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The "Meta police" is a term generally used to describe users who don't actively contribute to the site content, but who, in the minds of many, are there only to moderate and, in some cases, "destroy," other people's posts.

It's a term that's loosely used to refer to people who strictly enforce the rules and regulations that Stack Exchange puts in place (for good reason), and it has a negative connotation because it's usually used in a sense where one is in disagreement with said rules. The feelings also carry through because it is thought that these users who are more active on Meta than they are on the main site do not know what it feels like to have their question closed/deleted and therefore are more likely to do that to others.

It's also used to imply that people with moderation abilities/tendencies have too much power and that they use it incorrectly (this may be exaggerated by the "Meta effect").

If you see it, the best thing to do is disregard both its mention and the person who mentioned it because chances are, they're just mad about some action taken on one of their posts (or a post that they were involved in). If they are angry about an action that they feel is incorrect, well...they can bring it up on Meta!

I wish to note that the quoted comment (mine) was not using the term directly, but referring to exactly the usage you describe.
– Josh CaswellAug 9 '14 at 17:26

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Worth noting that since the split, participation on MSO from active SO users is way, way up - I'm hoping this eventually leads to less of a perceived divide between the folks running the site and the folks talking about running the site.
– Shog9♦Aug 9 '14 at 17:28

AstroCB @Shog9 is probably right expecting divide perception to weaken. Its current prominence is very likely a heritage of MSE where voice of SO top users was only one of the many. Since the split, MSO looks like more and more like dominated by top tier SO users and it's getting increasingly harder to believe that this meta runs by users who "don't actively contribute to the site content". Almost half of top meta page is already occupied by users having 20K+ at SO and it's probably just the beginning of the rise
– gnatAug 9 '14 at 17:56

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@Shog9 That's great, but frankly, I think one of the most amazing things about this model is the control that SE gives the community over the model in the first place. The "perceived divide" is very prominent for reasons I'm not entirely sure of: what other company allows you to post bug reports, feature requests, support requests, and host discussions about the site/company in the public eye and allows those postings to actually decide the direction of its development? How much more openness could you ask for? Why is there even a perceived divide at all?
– AstroCBAug 9 '14 at 18:00

I see... "elitist police", damn it, are we really getting at this? :) Hopefully it's only because this meta is very young, at more mature per-site metas I've seen there's typically too much disagreement between top users to allow clamping them with single label
– gnatAug 9 '14 at 18:11

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@Shog9 are we sure this is attributed to the split and not to the 4 constant links to meta from the main site? (I agree it's very positive by the way)
– Benjamin GruenbaumAug 10 '14 at 6:29

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The links that every other site had for years but we couldn't enable on SO until breaking off MSE? Yeah, those are probably a big help, @benjamin
– Shog9♦Aug 10 '14 at 6:35

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@AstroCB so you're saying "If you see someone express dissatisfaction with Meta, the best thing you can do is to ignore it entirely". And you wonder why people are dissatisfied with Meta? I have to say, your clear "them vs us" attitude explains the term "meta police" much, much better than I could have hoped to do.
– jalfAug 10 '14 at 11:57

@Shog9 what about the divide between "the folks running or talking about running the site" and those who talk about neither and just contribute on SO? That's the divide I'm worried about. The divide between Meta and SE staff? I can't say I've ever been worried about that.
– jalfAug 10 '14 at 12:16

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@jalf Exactly. If you want to be a part of the decision-making process, come here and voice your opinion. The community will make its decision and express its opinion via voting: you may be downvoted, insulted, or even mob-downvoted, but you will never be ignored. That's why this site exists. There is no "them vs. us" attitude: if they want to be "us," all they have to do is click the Stack Exchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™ and Meta Stack Overflow. That's all there is to it.
– AstroCBAug 10 '14 at 13:35

@jalf The same logic applies from my comment above, but you may want to read this and possibly this.
– AstroCBAug 10 '14 at 13:41

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When I talk about "the folks running the site", I'm talking about the folks contributing to it, @jalf.
– Shog9♦Aug 10 '14 at 15:14

It's an analogue to the notions of such frustrating, high-and-mighty individuals as the grammar police, the clothing police, the noise levels police, the <insert anything here> police who have placed upon themselves the responsibility and authority to judge, control and/or otherwise laud over their topic of choice.

This beer is delicious.

That beer is terrible. Why are you drinking that beer? I don't think you should drink that beer.

Who are you, the beer police? I can drink whatever I want.

The meta police are annoying, pedantic bastards who spend their whole life moaning on meta about someone not following the rules to the highest degree, often without really bothering to actually contribute to SO in the way that it was intended. They're spoiling for a fight, or they want to feel powerful, or they want to cause trouble, or whatever it is.

Has it something to do with users moderating the site without participating in Q&A itself?

Yeah, pretty much. Meta has a somewhat varied history. It's a bit similar to the age old problem that the people who seek power are the last ones you want to actually give power to.

Meta is where you go to discuss how the site should function, how it should be moderated, how it should be improved on. Some people just vent their grievances there, and some try to "leave their mark" on the site by getting "their" rules or policies accepted on Meta. And some people hang on Meta much, much more than they're on SO.

Sometimes this works out well, sometimes not so much. In the past, the Meta community has been on crusades to delete and close a lot of content on SO, which sparked a lot of outrage among those who put time and effort into all that content.

The "meta police" is a negative term for someone who strives to police SO and tell people what they can and cannot do, and forcibly remove or edit others' content, rather than contributing content themselves. Much like a real-world police force, it describes people who see their primary purpose as enforcing the rules and keeping control.

The underlying issue that some people spend most of their time sharing programming knowledge on SO (paying no attention to how the site is governed via Meta), while others spend most of their time on Meta, paying very little attention to actually asking and answering questions) has previously given rise to some big fights, and can give the impression that Meta is "out of touch" sometimes, and leads to terms like "the meta police" and other unflattering terms.

It's also why I virtually never check Meta these days. It feels fundamentally alien to me as a SO user. It is full of people who want to police and control and close and delete and discourage contributions to SO, and every time I visit Meta I get into big arguments about that. So I try not to visit Meta any more. It's easier to just stay out of it, even if I disagree with the direction it's taking SO.

Probably worth noting that the "power" available to folks on meta is the power of persuasion - you don't exactly get any extra privileges on the main site for writing stuff here, and those who spend too much time here can end up lacking the privileges necessary to actually implement anything being talked about. One of the nicer side-effects of the meta split was that folks' rep here now reflects their rep on SO - so when you see someone with 1.5K talking about how stuff should be deleted, you know they're full of it...
– Shog9♦Aug 10 '14 at 17:53

Sure, that's true. I'm not sure I would agree that it is just a matter of persuasion (there are a lot of ways to influence a crowd, without resorting to plain old persuasion), but true, formally, people here have no special power. They're just able to meet and influence each others and coordinate their actions.
– jalfAug 10 '14 at 19:06

Which we were doing in external forums, chatrooms, and on SO itself prior to meta, @jalf - hence the reason for meta's creation, so that these discussions wouldn't be hidden away where other interested parties could not easily find them.
– Shog9♦Aug 10 '14 at 19:31

@Shog9 Yep, I know. I was around back then as well. ;) I'm not saying it was a mistake to create Meta (although sometimes I do wonder if it might have been). It's interesting though, in the early days I thought creating Meta was the best idea ever, and that creating chat was a completely idiotic move. Today, I use chat, but I find Meta to be a largely toxic place.
– jalfAug 10 '14 at 22:19

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I feel the same way, but with the tools switched. Days when I have a productive discussion in chat are pretty few and far between - difference in styles, I suppose.
– Shog9♦Aug 10 '14 at 22:23

The meta police are the people who come to edit your post 3 seconds after you've made it, without contributing or answering. They'll often leave a snide comment after doing so. Users find it annoying to get notifications about their question that have nothing to do with getting an answer and in some cases even indicate that someone has degraded or derailed their question.

Sorry to say it, but the person asking this question actually sounds just like one of those people; you're literally panicking because you've been called a name by a frustrated coder and don't know what it means, and you come to get reassurance from your buddies that it's just the stupid users not understanding your perfect set of rules for degrading and derailing questions. (Especially if those questions ask something you can't look up in a manual or on another site.)

Someone editing your post so that others can understand it, or posting comments that will help you clarify what you're actually asking for is someone who is contributing far more effectively to you getting help than someone who's blindly taking a stab at answering an unanswerable question.
– ServyJan 12 '15 at 22:21

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How does someone clarifying and otherwise improving your question, or concisely but politely prompting you for all the parts you forgot to include, not contribute to getting you the answer you want?
– DeduplicatorJan 12 '15 at 22:22

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Someone coming and adding formatting to my post is not contributing, sorry. This is the whole point - we are here for answers, not to contribute to some artwork stitched together from your favourite questions.
– Derf SkrenJan 12 '15 at 22:24

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PS 5 downvotes in 12 minutes - this is more meta policing. I'm not surprised that people disagree with my opinion or don't like my tone, but can't you see the effect that this has when answers take days but the bitching starts seconds after any post?
– Derf SkrenJan 12 '15 at 22:26

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"Someone coming and adding formatting to my post is not contributing, sorry" Actually, that's contributing a lot for your benefit. If your question lacks formatting, that makes it harder to read and less likely to stay open/get answers. So the people editing your questions are helping you get better answers faster. To you, it may not seem like much. To them, it's giving your question more attention (your question gets bumped in the 'active' tab) and, hopefully, better attention.
– KendraJan 12 '15 at 22:29

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Please see this help center page to explain why editing is important to this site. Stack Overflow is meant to be a repository for programming information, and editing posts to make them clearer or easier to read helps future readers to understand the information you have to share.
– hichris123Jan 12 '15 at 22:39

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@Kendra and hichris123, yes editing is important. What will you edit when all the people who ANSWER questions and have INFORMATION to share are gone? Ask yourself: is it strange that we don't care about snide comments being made on posts but we do care what font parts of the post are in?
– Derf SkrenJan 12 '15 at 22:50

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Derf, if you find a comment to be rude or offensive, you can flag it. And if the comment is rude or offensive please flag it. Rude remarks are inappropriate here. Though if the person is just pointing out something you need to add to your question to get answers, then consider what they're saying before dismissing it. As to your first line... I'm not quite sure I understand what you are getting at and how that connects at all with people trying to assist you.
– KendraJan 12 '15 at 22:57

If you dislike an edit made to your post, rollback.
– Infinite RecursionJan 12 '15 at 23:13

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I can rollback... if I have sufficient reputation. And want to spend the rest of my life fighting back and forth between the original and the edits. Oh wait, only a certain type of person would do that. Someone with more time to spend making themselves feel good than programming. Wonder what we could call that type of person?
– Derf SkrenJan 13 '15 at 0:53

One last comment @Kendra - is someone who removes "thanks" off the end of posts helping? REALLY? Now picture someone who sits at their computer refreshing the list of topics every five seconds and trying to be the first one to do that ON EVERY POST. Would you call them a valued contributor? Would you feel comfortable being a new user with 5 reputation being told by someone with a million repturation that that's "not the way we do things around here"? Is that the first impression we want to give people? That someone who's apparently answered 100,000 questions is displeased with them?
– Derf SkrenJan 16 '15 at 4:28

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@DerfSkren If that's the only thing in the post they're removing, I'd question it. A lot of times, posts from newer users have more problems than just that: Formatting, grammar, etc. If the user has more than 2k rep, they're not getting anything out of doing that, so it's not an abuse of the system or anything. There's even a topic in the help center about having things like "thanks" in your post.
– KendraJan 16 '15 at 13:44